Measles Causes More Deaths

Measles leads to deaths from other causes for three years after infection

While the anti-vaccination crowd loves to point out that the 169 people who contracted measles in the US in 2015 didn’t die from measles, what they don’t know is that for the next two and a half years those people are more prone to die from infection than at any time in their life.

It turns out getting measles makes a person prone to other diseases. Vaccination prevents this.

After the introduction of measles vaccine in the 1960’s doctors notice a reduction in deaths from other infectious diseases of those who were vaccinated. This data was thought to be a quirk until a recent group of scientists found that the measles virus weakens the immune system of the people it infects. Vaccinating against measles not only protects against measles but against a number of other infectious diseases.

In fact children who develop measles are immunosuppressed and prone to other infections for over two years after developing measles. Half of the deaths from infectious diseases after contracting measles are due to this long-term immunosuppression from measles.

Put another way – get measles- you are more likely to die from a disease in the two years after measles than from measles itself. Measles vaccine protects against not only measles, but the problem of suppressing the immune system for the next two years.

About Dr. Terry SimpsonDr. Terry Simpson received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Chicago where he spent several years in the Kovler Viral Oncology laboratories doing genetic engineering. He found he liked people more than petri dishes, and went to medical school. Dr. Simpson, a weight loss surgeon is an advocate of culinary medicine. The first surgeon to become certified in Culinary Medicine, he believes teaching people to improve their health through their food and in their kitchen. On the other side of the world, he has been a leading advocate of changing health care to make it more "relationship based," and his efforts awarded his team the Malcolm Baldrige award for healthcare in 2011 for the NUKA system of care in Alaska and in 2013 Dr Simpson won the National Indian Health Board Area Impact Award. A frequent contributor to media outlets discussing health related topics and advances in medicine, he is also a proud dad, husband, author, cook, and surgeon “in that order.” For media inquiries, please visit www.terrysimpson.com.